Media Release
THE HON CON SCIACCA MP
MINISTER FORVETERANS’ AFFAIRS

“Platypus and her deadly chicks”
by Laurie Garnaut

Australia Remembers the Platypus amid her deadly chicks... an account of life in the Royal Australian Navy during WWII

Photo lodged with AAP Features wire:

HMAS Platypus arriving in Cairns, December 1942

Mr R. Laurie Garnaut Snr of Rainworth, Queensland, a butcher by trade, served in the Royal Australian Navy from June 1938 to 1950. As part of Australia Remembers: 1945 - 1995, the 50th anniversary of the end of WVTll, he recalls his charmed life on HMA S Platypus.

“For many years Platypus was based at the Naval Depot at Garden Is’and, Sydney, as HMAS Penguin. At the end of February 1941 she was recommissioned as a sea going ship and renamed. She had been built in England about 1917 and was a mother ship to submarines in the Royal Navy so had the nickname “The Platypus and her deadly chicks”. This remained apt during WWII when she was mother ship to 56 Corvettes and other small craft. She was a coal burner of about 3500 tons, with a complement of about 300, a most uncomfortable ship having been designed for the North Sea and the cold... not for the tropics.

When I was drafted back to sea after training, it wasn’t to the glamour ships, the Canberra, Sydney or Perth, but to the Platypus.

What I failed to notice when I joined her at Garden Island in April 1941 was the Guardian Angel on the mast head. I will never know how we survived the war with just one casualty, accidentally killed.

A Sydney Harbour ferry, Kattabul, which took her place, was sunk by a Japanese Midget submarine on 31 May 1942 with 19 killed and missing, and 10 wounded.

Three months earlier, the Platypus was attacked in the raid on Darwin. We were armed with just a WW1 four inch gun, one Lewis and one Vickers machine gun, a few 303 rifles and one three pounder.

We were attacked by numerous dive bombers. The Lugger HMAS Mavie, moored alongside, was hit and sunk, but Platypus never received a hit. Our crew felt that our ancient four inch gun, never designed as an ack ack (anti-aircraft) gun, had made the attackers cautious. Subsequent attacks had similar results.

Platypus was the only large ship that was not hit during the raids on Darwin although she sustained damage to the engine room as concussion from the bombing of Mavie.

Beer was hard to come by but one night we obtained a home brew and a couple of commercial bottles. At this stage we were living ashore and awoke, not remembering too much about the previous night. We discovered a bomb crater about a hundred yards from our bomb-damaged house. We hadn’t heard the air raid! The rest of the home brew was discarded and the brewer nearly went with it. Our Guardian Angel, with us again that night, must have looked on us as innocent victims of the demon grog.

When HMAS Sydney was sunk with all hands, it was very sad. All the chaps with whom I’d joined the Navy and undergone my new entry training had gone to the Canberra (with me, originally), the Sydney and to the Perth, so very few of us survived the war.

After being in Darwin for 20 months we set off for Cairns to establish a Naval Base. There was a stretch of water known as Bomb Alley between Wessel and Thursday Islands where Japanese float planes would bomb anything. One appeared and circled our ship a few times but kept out of range. When he came too close a couple of rounds from our four inch helped change his mind and we arrived in Cairns safely.

One day at Cairns, a mine was found to be hooked onto the propeller of Platypus. This was safely moved and we all returned aboard.

Platypus was one of the first ships to have sea going WRANs in her crew, collected from Sydney to go to Melbourne because of a train strike that had stranded them. There were very few who were not sea sick that night in a terrible gale. I had to become a nurse! I met one of the WRANs after the war and she told me the gale was an experience she’d never forget.

We returned to the tropics where we supported those who were “mopping up” after the Japanese. I remember an occasion when preparations were under way for the landing on Borneo and there was an air raid with ships fleeing and guns blazing in all directions.

August 15 1945 was the best day of all... there was not a dry eye on the ship. Next day it was business as usual as Japanese garrisons were cleared, mine fields swept away and Allied POWs repatriated.

On our return to Australia the following November, 1 couldn’t help but think of the lads with whom I joined - most of them on the glamour ships and dead.

I'd copped the old Platypus. Our Guardian Angel on the mast head must have felt as proud as us of the old girl” as we entered Sydney Harbour. I’m sure she was doing 40 knots or more on that final run, a paying off pennant and huge white ensign flapping in the breeze.

From then I was drafted to Flinders Naval Depot, confirmed as a Petty Officer and went to England serving aboard aircraft carriers. But most of my memories are with the HMAS Platypus and her deadly chicks.”

Commenting on these experiences, the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, Con Sciacca, paid tribute to all who served in the RAN during WWII.

He added: “The men of Platypus provided a valuable contribution, particularly after the bombing of Darwin.

“During this significant year, Australia Remembers: 1945 - 1995, we honour all who contributed to the war effort.”

Media contact: Annette Holden
Australia Rernembers Task Force
(06) 289 6559

Please use this link to add your comments l

Laurie & Agnes Garnaut
Memorial Prayer CD Collection